Jessi Stellberg, Rahul Mital
Hubing, GHS
Model UN, Indonesia
3/21-22/13
Racial Discrimination and Supervised Elections in Indonesia
With the upcoming meetings of the United Nations, the nation of Indonesia
would like to make clear our stance on the debated issues of racial and ethnic
discrimination and the supervision of elections. The nation of Indonesia has had
encounters with both of these issues in the past and especially in recent times.
The racial discrimination of Chinese Indonesians due to laws and policies set in
place by the Indonesian government is an issue we are working quickly to
remedy with the induction of our newest president, although we hold fast to our
right to support the national religion of Islam within our borders and will most
likely continue to disregard religious minorities as are currently present. With the
increasing democratization of Indonesia, we have required assistance in the
organization and execution of our growing electoral systems, and taken full
advantage of the help offered by the UN in the past. With the possibility of new
resolutions being created in regard to either of these issues in the upcoming
meetings of the UN, the nation of Indonesia would like to ensure that our opinion
on both of these matters is heard and fairly represented before any new
decisions are made.
The issue of ethnic and racial discrimination has been highly debated in
Indonesia over the last few decades, making this an important problem that we
need to take action on. Unfortunately our government has not always been the
most accepting of our Chinese-born citizens and have discriminated against
them in an effort to keep them out of our country. In addition, these citizens have
been the target of many independent riots and attacks in the past, including the
riots of May 1998 which killed 6 people and injured one hundred others as shops
and homes were burned to the ground and people were beaten down. The event
caused the President Suharto to resign and be replaced by the much more
progressive Bacharuddin Jusif Habibe. It also created a transition in the types of
legislation being passed regarding racial qualification of citizenship, from the
harsh policies of the New Order to the more recent, inclusive policies of the
reformation. In the later half of the 1900s, the period called the New Order
required an SBKRI (letter of proof of citizenship of the Republic of Indonesia) for
all citizens of foreign descent when enrolling in universities, military positions, or
government jobs, which was unfairly enforced for citizens of Chinese descent,
limiting their economic and political opportunities. To attempt to make up for this
situation, a reformation period began in the early 2000s that has eliminated the
official use of discriminatory terms for these citizens and recalled past legislation
that previously forbade the public practice of Chinese culture and language.
Since the implementation of these new policies, several prominent government
positions have been upheld by Chinese Indonesians on the People’s
Representative Council and the Cabinet, showing the progress our country has
made.
For the future, Indonesia believes that further action by the government
should be taken to remove discriminatory legislation and policies against Chinese
Indonesians. We also believe that steps should be taken to further their
acceptance into Indonesian society, media, and government. We have been
called out in the past by the UN for not doing enough to lessen this discrimination,
so in the future we would support any resolutions helping to eliminate ethnic
prejudice in both our own and in other countries that are currently having similar
issues. However, we uphold the right to continue legislation in favor of our
national religion of Islam and refuse to comply with the UN’s requests to lessen
discrimination of religious minorities, as that is our business only.
As the country of Indonesia has attempted to move away from
authoritarianism to a system of democracy, the need for supervision of elections
has become more important. Over the last ten years or so we have begun to hold
voting processes to elect both local and national representatives with the hope
for the participation of as many citizens as possible. Since 2006, we have had
assistance in this endeavor from the UNDP, which has assisted in both the
organization and acquirement of the necessary materials to host a large network
of complicated elections for more than 15,000 positions for local representatives
in the elections on April 5, 2004, and then again in helping set up the presidential
elections held on July 5, 2004 which had 5 separate candidates running for the
office. About 585,000 polling stations were required for this undertaking, and the
UNDP helped supply them all. The UNDP also helped in voter education and
public awareness, which contributed greatly to the 92% turnout for eligible voters.
Ensuring that all parts of the population were represented in the new democratic
system was an issue of great importance for our government, and we were
thoroughly pleased with the results. The UN’s assistance was greatly appreciated,
and our success has given us the stance that the UN should offer assistance
where requested in supervising elections in newly democratic countries. They
should not force their help on unwilling countries however. The country must ask
for and fully consent to this assistance first.
The nation of Indonesia wishes to express the desire to begin to eliminate
racial discrimination within our borders, yet be left alone in matters of religion and
rights for religious minorities, and for the assistance in supervising elections
where requested in democratically developing countries. Our country is therefore
in support of new resolutions as long as they respect the wishes of countries to
run themselves as they best see fit, and for the UN’s interference only where
requested. As long as these requests are met by the committee, the nation of
Indonesia will be more than happy to support any new resolutions put forth for
the betterment of democratic nations.